Project Management
CS-160: Software Engineering
Instructor: Rob Bruce
Fall 2016

SLIDE 1: Project Management: a definition

The process of monitoring and assessing deliverables to ensure timely completion of the project specification.

SLIDE 2: Project management: Executive support

Executive champion or Executive sponsor: "Highest ranking executive who supports [the] project." Responsibilities:

  • "Providing necessary resources such as budgets, hardware, and personnel"
  • "Making ‘go/no-go’ decisions and deciding when to cancel the project"
  • "Giving guidance on high-level issues such as how the project fits into the company’s overall business strategy"
  • "Helping navigate any administrative hurdles required by the company"
  • "Defining the business case"
  • "Working with users and other stakeholders to get buy-in"
  • "Providing feedback to developers about implemented features"
  • "Buffering the project from external distractions (such as the rest of the company)"
  • "Referring between managers, users, developers, and others interested in the project"
  • "Supporting the project team"
  • "Staying out of the way"
  • Source: Rod Stephens' Beginning software Engineering, pp. 30-31

SLIDE 3: Project Manager

Project manager: "Highest ranking member of the project team." Responsibilities

  • "Helping define the project requirements"
  • "Tracking project tasks"
  • "Responding to unexpected problems"
  • "Management risk"
  • "Keeping users (and the executive champion) up to date on the project’s progress"
  • "Providing an interface between customers and developers"
  • "Managing resources such as time, people, budget, hardware, and software tools"
  • "Managing delivery"
  • Source: Rod Stephens' Beginning software Engineering, pp. 31-32

SLIDE 4: Project management: Visualization

Project management charts:

  • Used for visualizing task dependencies and duration of tasks.

Examples:

  • Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) charts
  • Critical Path methods
  • Gantt chats
  • Source: Rod Stephens' Beginning software Engineering, pp. 31-32

SLIDE 5: Project management: Tips

  • Experience in project management leads to accurate time estimates.
  • Be generous when estimating time to completion of various tasks (i.e. account for the unexpected delays).

SLIDE 6: Project management: Tips (continued)

For each project task consider:

  • "Likehood: Do you know more or less how to perform this task"
  • "Severity: Can the users live without this feature if the task proves difficult?"
  • "Consequences: Will problems with this task affect other tasks?"
  • "Work-arounds: Are there work-arounds?"
  • Source: Rod Stephens' Beginning software Engineering, p. 48

SLIDE 7: Project management: Tips (continued)

If there are alternatives for a given task (i.e. work-arounds) consider:

  • "Difficulty: How hard will it be to implement this work-around?"
  • "Impact: What affects do the work-arounds have on the project’s usability?"
  • "Pros: What are the work-arounds’ advantages?"
  • "Cons: What are the work-arounds’ disadvantages?"
  • Source: Rod Stephens' Beginning software Engineering, p. 48

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